Robert Laurence Binyon - A Woman lyrics

O you that facing the mirror darkly bright In the shadowed corner, loiter shyly fond, To ask of your own sad eyes a comfort slight, Before you brave the pathless world beyond; Not first to--night invades your spirit this wild Despair, when loneliness stabs you! Turned, your face Trembles, and soft hesitation makes you a child, The child you were in some far, forgotten place, Amid things for ever rejected. Dreamed you so From the blankness of life to escape to a region enjoyed, Glowing, and strange? Yet blank to--night, I know, Spreads life, my sister; within you a deeper void. In all this city, I think, so charged with pain, None suffers more; desiring what you do With insupportable longing, and still in vain Desiring, still condemned to accept, and rue. Where tarries he, Love, the adored one? In fields unknown Roams he apart, or in sound of a pleasant stream Sleeps? Nay, dwells he in cloudy rumour alone, A name, a vision, a sweet, eluding dream? He lives, he lives, my sister; yet rarely to men He appears; they touch but his robe, and believe it is he. But soft, with inaudible feet, he is flown, nor again Comes soon; rejoicing still to be wayward and free. A moment, ev'n now, he was near you: invisible wings Brushed by you; and infinite longing, to follow, to find That vision truth, overcomes you,--the heart's sad things To tell in a trusted ear, on a bosom kind. Alas! not so he is won: when the last despair Encamps in the heart, at last when all seems vain, Then, perchance, he will steal to you unaware, And loose your tears, and understand your pain.